For this purpose I have raised you up

“I got stabbed - right here!”
The following paragraph is justification for getting to say this until the novelty wears off.
Last week I camped at the beach, and realized that I couldn’t roll my own sleeping bag. I’ve pretended since March that my left hand wasn’t screwed up, but unfortunately bag-stuffing-skills are kind of necessary for my summer adventure. Yesterday I took my doctor up on his standing offer of voluntary torture. My mom learned a lot about my vocabulary in those minutes.

So I leave tomorrow night. No doubt you’ve either gotten an email, facebook message, phone call, etc. over the past two days — during the majority of which I’ve been pretty excited & upbeat. I truly am, but with a solid undercurrent of anxiety. My most overwhelming concerns are as follows:

• Found out yesterday the travel agent Fed-Exed my paper ticket to me. Yesterday.

• I still am homeless in HK, as far as I know.
• I realized this week how woefully unprepared for teaching I am.
• I’m still not packed.

As far as the ticket goes, as of a few minutes ago Mr. FedEx has agreed to have my firstborn - so that’s resolved. Homelessness is because I don’t know if anyone’s meeting me or not, and I’m hesitant to book a hostel until I know for sure. Unpreparedness is partially par for the course, but somewhat due to actual real unpreparedness (crap.). Lack of completely packed bag is simple procrastination and nerves. Trying to remember this purpose is bigger than me.

In any case, you shouldn’t hear from me here until the fall. Skip over to True Places until then.

Frustration, trepedation

I found out this evening that the travel arrangements being made on my behalf officially are ass-backwards from what I had been assuming since January.

Point the first: I now need to buy a domestic roundtrip (ATL-LAX) that I was first told I didn’t need. More money I still don’t have.

Second: I won’t arrive in PEK (with people to take my extra luggage, a place to stay between traveling, and a sweet connection flight to my final destination) like I thought - and I will need to arrange my own travel in-country. So not only am I arriving in SHA with not a soul to greet me, but I have two city-hops to arrange (half a country north, 7/8ths of a country west)… and purchase. Only one hop if I sleep in the SHA airport and drag a suitcase of teaching-month-stuff (which I’m seriously considering not taking) to the decrepit backcountry.

Bah. Blargh. Et cetera.

I’ve been so overly concerned with twisted logistics and increasing expenses recently, that the past few days I’ve been constantly asking myself… why am I doing this again? More to the point, why am I letting everything I once loved get muddled with the general idea of ahhhh-[breath]-ahhhhhh!.

Also, if you happen to see a bundle of faith walk by, please tell it to return home. I miss it.

Unwelcome complex

There are people I need to fix, and things I want to help.

There are mistakes I want to stop, and changes I need to make.

There are lessons being learned ‘the hard way,’ and I am powerless to stem the tide.

Because the people are not me, the things are not mine, and the bad cannot be changed through my own influence - yet that never stops me from desperately trying.

…and more often than not, such desperation only adds to the downward spiral, the lessons, the flood of inevitability. The need to do all but shake shoulders and scream I LOVE YOU BUT YOU’RE MAKING A MISTAKE! only leads to worse. Remaining powerless against it all, and still the feeling that - with enough effort - resolution can somehow be granted.

…but I’m full of mistakes.

All my bags are packed…

Actually: yeah. Yeah, they are. Big w00t.

So yes. I’ll depart ye olde homefront somewhere around 6am tomorrow, for ATL, and after that — well, you won’t hear from me for another month and some change. So no different than the usual, really.

It’s weird, though, planning to be gone for so long. Last time I did this was a couple years ago, and I think I’m out of practice. And in this case I’ve also got the “ooo, what if I forget something and my students think I SUCK?!” inner voice going on. But that’s what shopping is for. YAY exchange rates.

So I’m going around and doing the final little things that always get left for last minute: hairbrush (who packs their brush any earlier than a couple hours advance, I mean seriously?!), change the cat litter, and… oh yeah.

OMGWTFBBQ?!!!111

Yeah, that felt exceedingly strange. But I don’t want to pay when I don’t play, and it cycles for me on the 2nd, so that’d be two payments hitting while I’m gone.

Oh, and for anyone that stumbles in here and missed my email, if you’d like to check in over the next month or so, head to English Elsewhere. It’s supposedly going to be updated with news and such from the Great Land Across The Pond.

…Only, um, funny thing, that Great Land has a Great Bigass Firewall — across the entire Great Freaking Country. Which successfully blocks just about every free community-based blogger service from the States. Now of course, if I were travelling on my own, it wouldn’t really be a problem. But. I have a strict no-funny-business-ban in place from the Powers That Be; such a one that I really don’t feel like dealing with possible repercussions. Anyhow, long story short (too late!): updates will still be posted on English Elsewhere, but I’ll be emailing them to a not-so-anonymous cohort Stateside, who will subsequently post. Yay, boo, etc. Better than nothing, I suppose.

Ok. I go now. In other news: would anyone like to buy Sara a digital music player for her next great flight? 72 CDs are kind of… heavy.

Adios.